by Robert Brady
“I believe I am,” I answered. “I’d expect you to attend, of course.”
“As your Majesty wishes,” she lowered her eyes demurely.
In the back of my mind, I wondered if there’d be a fist-fight with the other girls. In the same thought, I thought maybe that wouldn’t be such a bad thing. Then none of them would want to see me.
The crowd cheered. I turned my attention to see another warrior on his back, the victor in Volkhydran furs raising a wooden representation of a battle axe over his head and shaking it in triumph. Lee was clapping her hands and Nina, holding her, was smiling.
Shela bit my calf. I didn’t yelp but it wasn’t much of a bite. I reached down to stroke her long, black hair. I felt her fingers on the inside of my thigh and had to smile.
“It’s good ta be da king,” I said, to no one in particular.
One of the towers in the palace is filled with guest rooms, and around the fifth floor a huge, wide room with balconies had clearly been intended for meetings but never used. It contained a big, long table surrounded by chairs, a set of tapestries, one of them a map of Fovea as it had been known at the time it was woven, and an actual chalkboard, which I’d added.
I met here with Henekh and his staff, mostly because this place had outer doors which could be opened for a cross wind, and Henekh kind of reeked.
He was still a giant of a man, probably heavier than I, sporting thick red hair on every exposed inch of his skin with the possible exception of his eyelids, his hair braided warrior-style around his shoulders.
His niece, Neveratta, attended with a couple non-descript Volkhydran ladies. She’d changed to a blouse and long skirt and made sure to unbutton enough of the blouse to reveal cleavage, probably based on Shellene’s perceived success.
She wasn’t stacked like Shellene but he had nothing to be ashamed of, either. Dark hair and dark eyes just like Shela, not as slender but a dagger on her hip in a wide, leather belt – this was a Volkhydran daughter, no denying it.
I’d made sure that Henekh got here before I did, so that I could make an entrance. D’gattis had helped me out with that little pointer, the idea behind it being that this put me in the power position. Hectar attended me with his son, along with Shela and thirty Wolf Soldiers.
Henekh had five of his own warriors in attendance. They eyed the Wolf Soldiers with a speculation that said they’d love it if something broke out and they could prove themselves.
Shela pulled a chair out for me to sit in, on the side of the table opposite that which Henekh had chosen and directly in the center, which put the sun behind him, but not directly. This wasn’t Henekh’s first rodeo, either. I could tell he’d moved the table to give himself this advantage but didn’t say anything.
“How may Eldador be of service to you, Lord Henekh?” I asked him.
He made a face and I remembered D’gattis telling me that this sort of behavior didn’t suit me. I didn’t like it much when he was right, but it wouldn’t be smart not to listen to him, just because of that.
“What do you need, Henekh?” I asked him, correcting myself.
It’s not like I hadn’t been to Volkhydro, either.
Neveratta stood and crossed behind her uncle. While she moved, he said, “What I need is a fighting chance for my niece,” he informed me. “That red-haired bitch has been sitting next to you all day.”
“And from what I’m told,” Neveratta said, rounding the end of the table and progressing toward me, ignoring an almost-murderous look from Shela, “she had you all to herself yesterday, when you all but ran from the rest of us.”
I couldn’t hold back a smile. At least I had called this one. “How did you know about that?” I asked.
“We aren’t without resources,” one of Henekh’s men informed me.
Neveratta took up a position behind me and put her hands on my shoulders. I felt her thumbs dig into my upper back and neck muscles. Shela actually bared her teeth, making it sort of look like a smile after a moment.
“You shouldn’t allow yourself to be distracted from long-term opportunities,” she informed me, leaning forward to make sure that her warm breath touched my ear, “by such short-term ones.”
“And don’t be fooled,” Henekh informed me, “that girl is a short term opportunity. A marriage to her brings you nothing.”
“Does it now?” I asked him. Shela shifted in her seat next to me, and I didn’t need to look at her to know that this was already pushing her past where she wanted to go.
This had to be hard on her. She didn’t want this – she had no ambitions to be the Queen of anything. She’d be just as happy with me if I were a peasant farmer – probably happier because then I wouldn’t be chasing off suitors.
“She’s the daughter to a vassal whose loyalty isn’t in question,” Henekh informed me. “And who will be a vassal tomorrow, regardless of your decision with her now.”
“If you seek nothing more than an ample bosom, look no farther than your current slave,” Neveratta added. “But then any woman should be so gifted after the birth of a child.”
I think that was a compliment, and Shela didn’t do more than squint her eyes, so I couldn’t be sure how to react to it. The overall impression was that I’m a horn-dog, though, and that I could handle.
“So what you’re informing me,” I said, with a sideways look at Hectar and his son, Hectaro, who each sat with their hands folder one over the other on the table in front of them, “is that I have more to fear from Volkhydro.”
That got a wide-eyed reaction from two of Henekh’s warriors, although the warlord himself kept his cool. Neveratta kept rubbing my back, which I was good with, seeing as she was really, really skilled at it.
“Volkhydro has never been bested in any field of battle by Eldadorians,” Henekh informed me. “You should not confuse your luck with the Confluni with victories against us.”
Had to admit, that’s the most artful, open-handed threat I’d received in both of my days as a King. It even earned Henekh sideways looks from his own warriors.
Hectaro just chuckled. Hectar even allowed himself a smile.
Neveratta moved her hands lower down my back.
“You know,” I said, squinting my eyes and nodding, “that’s probably true. I think it might diminish Eldador, that we’ve had no such victories.”
“The Eldadorian Regulars stand ready at your command, your Majesty,” Hectar informed me.
Henekh squinted at me – he wasn’t doing what I wanted him to do yet, but he was close. Neveratta wasn’t missing a beat – I might take her just to spite him, after all.
I had an idea that he was going just for that. It would be a Volkhydran thing to do.
“It took four thousand Wolf Soldiers to sack Outpost IX,” I informed them. “So perhaps six thousand for Volkha, alongside ten thousand Eldadorian Regulars.”
“You don’t have enough ships –“ Henekh said, smiling broadly.
“I have the resources of Free Legion shipping at my disposal,” I countered him, “and I think if I were to ask, I could get help from the Confluni if I wanted it.”
To any Volkhydran, that was a dire threat, and it wasn’t lost on Henekh. Without thinking, his hand went for the short sword at his side, on his belt.
That was what I’d been waiting for. Neveratta’s dagger coming out of its sheath behind me, however, was a total surprise.
To me, that is, not to Shela, who sprang from her chair like a tigress and took the Volkhydran girl’s blindside from the right.
If you want to handle Volkhydrans, then you have to think like a Volkhydran, because they aren’t like any other people, and in a world dominated by Uman-Chi and how they handled politics, it was easy to overlook what mattered to simple, brutish Volkhydrans.
I could have vaulted over the table, the Sword of War in my hand, and dealt with Henekh while my Wolf Soldiers tore apart his personal guard. I could have shipped their heads back to Volkhydro with Neveratta and thought, “Boy, did I teach them a les
son.”
They’d have chewed on it for a long time, bided their time and struck sometime in the future when I wasn’t ready for it. That’s how a Volkhydran mind works.
I left the Sword of War in its sheath. While Shela dealt with Neveratta, I put both hands under the table, ten feet long, and picked up the edge.
It wasn’t a light table – that was pretty much the point. I got the end up, stepped forward and turned my wrists and, from the center of the table, picked the whole thing up off of the ground.
The Volkhydrans scrambled backwards over their chairs, their eyes wide, as I pushed the whole thing up over my head, took one giant step forward, and then heaved it at them.
This was a mammoth act of pure brute power. The table bowled over all five of them and their warlord. One set of legs broke off and the table itself shattered at the center. It crushed four matching chairs under its weight, a couple Volkhydran arms and legs along with them.
Panting, I stood over the tangle of Men and furniture, my Wolf Soldiers flanked behind me, Hectar and Hectaro to my left, and Shela straddling Neveratta on the floor, her dagger knocked away.
The table edge had taken Henekh right in the chest. From the wheezing, I had to guess we’d broken a few ribs. He stood, using the shoulder of one his warriors for support, the latter on all fours with his head down, gasping for air and dripping blood on the floor from his mouth and nose. None of the rest of them was getting up any time soon.
He stood up, and he faced me, but he made a point of keeping his hand away from his sword.
“Neveratta may sit next to me for the afternoon’s entertainment, if she so wishes,” I informed him.
“She does,” Neveratta grunted from floor, under Shela.
“Shellene was certified a virgin before she was sent here,” Hectaro added.
Wow.
“I’ll bend her right over the table edge for you right now if that’s what you want,” Henekh growled. He wasn’t happy but this wasn’t about being happy. This was about being the meanest dog in the fight. That had everything to do with being Volkhydran.
“Do it,” Shela said, stepping up off of the Volkhydran girl.
I turned on my heel and left. It wasn’t right for the King of Eldador to be a party to that sort of thing, and in fact I had somewhere else to be.
I needed to meet with Kills, and the best place to do that was the stables. Everything about me that interested him was centered there.
This wasn’t the sort of meeting to bring Shela to, based on what I was pretty sure he’d want to discuss, but a man likes to see his granddaughter and I’d already arranged for Nina to have Lee there with her Wolf Soldier guard.
So when I marched in with my Wolf Soldier guard, I expected a ‘grandpa moment,’ meaning Kills holding Lee and making a big fuss over her.
What I didn’t expect was that he’d have her sitting on the back of one of those mares he brought, seeing if she could keep her balance.
Nina stood to one side with the Wolf Soldiers, looking ready to leap out of her own skin. If you knew Aschire then you knew what they did when they were unhappy, and Nina was balanced on the balls of her feet, her arms back, that ever-surprised look on her face darkened by dread as she watched Lee coo and kick her heels on the horse’s back.
“For the love of Weather, Kills With a Glance, did you decide you have too many granddaughters?” I bellowed to him.
The mare did a start/stop in surprise, as horses will do, and he plucked Lee from her back, cradling her in one arm, smiling guiltily. Nina stepped up with her arms out, reaching for Lee’s hands.
“I can barely have any fun with her, thanks to this bodyguard you’ve assigned her,” Kills complained, pointing to Nina. Nina shot me a nervous look and let Lee take one index finger in either hand. Her bebe was stilled bent over one arm.
“More to Nina’s credit,” I answered him. As I covered the distance down the aisle where Blizzard’s paddock lay, she shot me a look that showed me her concern, and managed to drag Lee out of Kills’ hands.
The Andaran’s retinue, also five warriors, were occupied in the other mare’s stall, the two Andaran daughters with them. They were arguing in Andaran as to which of the mares was a better prospect for my stallion, not that I was supposed to know that. Most Men didn’t speak Andaran.
“Have you tried to breed these mares yet?” Kills demanded of me.
“No,” I said. “Not yet.”
“More interested in that red-headed mare you’ve been sitting next to all day?” he pressed me, grinning.
I chuckled. “I don’t think your daughter would like that,” I said.
He sighed. “We’ve had that conversation,” he told me. “You’re doing no one any favors spoiling her. No woman likes to see her man with others, but if it’s going to happen, you should get it over with.”
I nodded. It seemed to be looking that way.
He indicated the two Andaran women with his thumb. “I’m told you haven’t touched either of them yet.”
“I’m not sure I want to take the offer,” I informed him.
Kills frowned and took a step closer to me. “You know that the mare I bred to him went to foal?” he asked me.
I nodded. I’d heard that he had a filly from it from Two Spears. In fact, it occurred to me that I hadn’t seen much of Two Spears since I’d made him a Duke.
“I can tell you that I have no interest in any of the other tribes getting to that blood line,” he informed me. Then he put a hand on my shoulder, “But I have less in the Drifters or the Wet Bellies coming up from the south and raiding my tribe, either. In fact, I’m leaving tomorrow because of it.”
The tribes might all kill each other over that horse, it’s true, I thought to myself. It would be better to let more have access to the line, at least the large tribes.
“So how does that work?” I asked Kills.
He smiled wide. “Your daughter looks too much like you for you to ask that question,” he informed me.
I laughed and shoved him with both hands. He recovered and punched me in the chest.
“What I meant to ask,” I informed him, grinning wide, “is what form do I follow with this? Just take them when I want them? Does the second one lose coup to the first? What if there’s a child?”
Kills nodded. Men and women in the tribe ‘counted coup,’ meaning that they gathered or lost honor by certain actions or the way others treated them. It would be a legitimate question, then, if the order mattered, and Kills as a tribal war lord would be responsible for knowing which way honor fell.
“The Wet Bellies and the Drifters, they are more like two separate parts of one tribe,” he informed me, “both in the south of Andoran, a barrier to the Slee Nation. I believe you will give coup to both because you’re the warrior who brought Blizzard to the people, but more coup to the first, surely.”
“If one tribe was bigger, then I would take their daughter first and then coup would not be affected,” I surmised.
Kills nodded again. “Now, you are clearly just showing your preference. These girls were not offered to you, so you give them back to the tribe, with child or without. I think there are men who will want them pregnant, because your son would probably be a good son.”
Well, that’s nice to know. The whole tribe raised an Andoran child, so their idea of parental responsibility wasn’t like mine. I, however, had no desire to run around fathering children whom I couldn’t then be responsible for. That just wasn’t me.
Words Genna had spoken to me stung me once again.
“You could always barter to keep them, if you want,” Kills added.
“Or just keep them,” I said off-handedly.
“No,” Kills said, more emphatically. “Drifters and Wet Bellies, these are proud tribes, White Wolf. Large tribes. They will make war on you if you shame these daughters.”
“And then you could have their lands, if you wanted them,” I said, “because that would be the last anyone ever saw of the Wet
Bellies or the Drifters.”
Kills shrugged. “Neither tribe will hesitate because of your Wolf Soldiers,” he said. Now his warriors were approaching us, the girls with them, because the conversation was becoming heated. “Likely they don’t know or care anything about them, and an Andaran on a horse is the equal of many on foot.”
His warriors nodded. The two girls cast nervous glances around them.
“If you make war on my tribe,” Sings Softly said, her voice lowered, “they will just join with the Drifters if you do them that much harm.”
“And Drifters with the Wet Bellies,” Little Bird added. They were dressed now more like Shela dressed when I met her – the one-piece skin worn over the shoulders and tied at the middle, decorated here and there with beads. I’d learned that the beads identified the tribe.
“So you’d just make a new tribe, and a new enemy,” Kills informed me. “Maybe more new enemies, as men and women with no tribe came to join this new tribe while it was easy.”
That got my attention. “They wouldn’t have to go through all of the rituals?” I asked.
All of the Andarans shook their heads. “When a new tribe is formed, it will usually take whoever wants to join it, at least at first. Small tribes rarely last – they’re raided because they’re weak.”
I held back a smile – these warriors were going to return to Andoran soon, and Andarans are the biggest gossips in the world.
I turned to one of the sergeants in the Wolf Soldier squads that attended me. They’d been waiting bored back at the entrance to this part of the stables, none of them native Andaran speakers as far as I knew.
“Sergeant,” I called him, then recognized him as Chuckurr, a Volkhydran I’d liberated from Hydran jails after he’d gone on a killing spree in response to the city Duke, Dragor (a relative of Henekh’s, named after his father), had ordered some family member executed for cowardice on the battle field.
“Chukurr,” I said, when I had his attention. “Your squad can bring these women to my apartments and provide them with whatever they need to clean themselves up.”
He nodded and his squad snapped to attention. With nervous looks to the other to the Andaran males, who ignored them, the two girls fell in with the Wolf Soldiers and the group left.
